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my house is an old victorian that was built by a US Senator back in 1899, which makes this a historical house. from there the house was sold to the Archdiocese of Boston. the cardinal lived there. during their tenure they had put 3 additions on the house, one connected to the other one without touching the original structure.
the person that bought the house from the archdiocese got it re-zoned into a 4 family. i bought the house in 1997 planning to be here for maybe 5 years years. i wound up getting re-married and my wife liked the place so she didn't wan to move.
i went back to the zoning board to get approved to knock down the additions to the house and rebuild it back up so that it didn't look so crazy...the zoning board and building department approved my plans and i just needed the blessing of the neighborhood association. the neighborhood association has 5 members on the board. i went in front of them 3 different times and my application was denied by a 3-2 vote every time. each time i came up with a different plan that was supposed to satisfy the dissenting members. eventually the head of the board told me that she will never approve any changes whatsoever on my property and that she has 2 other members that will always go along with her. so i am waiting for either her to resign or another member to leave the board before i go for another hearing. at some point if i get the approval, i can either do the work or sell the house to a developer with the approvals. without the approval i will be selling the property at a discount. my house sits on 15,000 square feet of land and the structure has 8000 square feet of living space. my project will ex[and the living space by an additional 3000 feet and the place should look a lot better.
at my last meeting it was done on a virtual zoom meeting. there were over 50 different abutters or neighborhood members that pleaded for my approval. i never asked for that or even let them know there was a hearing, but they did show up and supported my project.
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